1. Field of the Invention
The following relates to user input devices, including, keyboard, keypad, touch pad, cursor control devices, light pens, as well as other user input devices.
2. Related Art
With the proliferation of electronic devices, the number of different shapes, sizes and applications of electronic devices have increased dramatically. At the same time, and also concurrent with more efficient and compact designs, product sizes have become smaller. However, product size may still be dictated in many products by such considerations as the sizes of displays or viewing screens, and sizes of data input modes such as keyboards, keypads, and pressure sensitive screens. Consequently, the sizes, shapes or other configuration aspects of modern electronic devices may often be dictated by practical limitations on one or another of the individual components making up the device.
In such electronic devices as personal data assistants (PDAs) of the type existing at the time of filing of this application, for example, data input can be achieved through a pressure-sensitive display area, a special purpose keyboard hard wire connected to the PDA or through a link, hard wired or wireless, to a personal computer, or the like. Data entry through the display typically requires learning and using a recognizable alphanumeric symbol set representing alphabet and numbers, allowing the PDA to translate the input into data that can be displayed using conventional fonts. Data entry through a keyboard is faster and does not require character recognition or translation, but the keyboard is a special purpose keyboard usually specific to the device. Data entry through a personal computer typically occurs through the straight download of preexisting data. The download typically uses proprietary software and device-specific hardware.
Small devices such as wrist watches can be designed to accept and display a wide variety of information. For example, others have considered a wrist watch that can be used to access electronic information and services such as those available on the Internet. The watch can be designed to receive and display user identification data, personal location information, personal calendar, meeting and contact information and the like. Information would be downloaded from nearby computers or through a hardware connection, without which fast, easy and accurate data entry would be difficult.
As devices such as the foregoing digital watches and PDAs get smaller, convenient and accurate data entry become more important designed considerations.